Bontempi zither, owned from January 2004 to present, bought for $14
Whilst browsing ebay for some Bontempi keyboard action, I came across a zither. Unlike the other acoustic instruments they made (recorders, reed organs, toy pianos) this one actually seemed interesting. I thought for a while about the things I could do to it- dropping marbles on the strings, etc. and decided that I had to have one. Indeed, it is lots of fun. Not just using marbles but rubbing a cd case across the strings, putting rubber bands over the strings, etc. produces a wide spectrum of strange sounds.
It's not a zither in the traditional sense, more simplified and toy-like. Mine's got 16 strings, and I assume the tuning is supposed to be diatonic. The body of it is metal with weird brown swirly paint, and a sort of fiberboard bottom. Going by what ebay searches bring up, these sorts of cheap instruments were pretty popular toys in the 60's and 70's.
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